Publication Date:
2015-08-15
Description:
The underthrusting of continental crust during mountain building is an issue of debate for orogens at convergent continental margins. We report three-dimensional seismic anisotropic tomography of Taiwan that shows a nearly 90 degrees rotation of anisotropic fabrics across a 10- to 20-kilometer depth, consistent with the presence of two layers of deformation. The upper crust is dominated by collision-related compressional deformation, whereas the lower crust of Taiwan, mostly the crust of the subducted Eurasian plate, is dominated by convergence-parallel shear deformation. We interpret this lower crustal shearing as driven by the continuous sinking of the Eurasian mantle lithosphere when the surface of the subducted plate is coupled with the orogen. The two-layer deformation clearly defines the role of subduction in the formation of the Taiwan mountain belt.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Huang, T-Y -- Gung, Y -- Kuo, B-Y -- Chiao, L-Y -- Chen, Y-N -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Aug 14;349(6249):720-3. doi: 10.1126/science.aab1879.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. ; Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. ycgung@ntu.edu.tw byk@earth.sinica.edu.tw. ; Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. ycgung@ntu.edu.tw byk@earth.sinica.edu.tw. ; Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26273051" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
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Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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